Posts Tagged ‘Cake’

You can sometimes return a gift that you don’t like. But you really can’t return a half-eaten ice cream cake. The guys at Carvel look at you funny like you’ve just stepped off the surface of Neptune or grown another forehead. And then Cookie Puss ends up getting shoved somewhere uncomfortable and the police get involved and then there’s handcuffing and a struggle and the inevitable perp walk on the local news, then YouTube, then CNN. It’ll all end in tears. TEARS, I tell ya!!! Sigh. Oh what the heck. Okay, Moira, I’ll eat the rest of the damn cake. I don’t want a bloody scene.

At the office, whenever there’s a birthday card to be signed for a co-worker, I always write the same thing: I know it’s you who’s been stealing stuff from the supply cabinet but I won’t tell anyone if you give me the biggest slice of cake. Surprisingly, I’m right most of the time. And I really get some amazing slices of cake out of it.

It was 1954, television’s golden age, and I was working as assistant to the lead property master at the now-defunct Dumont network. Aside from Captain Video and Studio 57, our main project was a fledgling game show called Blow Out The Candles. The premise was pretty elementary: three contestants vied for the chance to have their very own birthday party, complete with cake and ice cream. The questions were pretty simplistic (“Who created the cartoon character Mickey Mouse?”), but it was a bona fide hit for three weeks during the summer.

One night, however, the lead prop guy, Buster “Crabby” Stunton, got stinkin’ blind drunk and fell onto the birthday cake we were gonna use in the prize sequence. Well, we didn’t have any others baked and the studio chef had already clocked out for the day and all nearby bakeries were closed. So, we made up our own, a “faux” cake, out of plywood and caulk and painted it with white chrome matte. It looked beautiful and no one would have been the wiser had not the emcee, on a spur of the moment lark, tried to take a bite right out of the upper tier. He broke two teeth. On live television.

Crabby and I got our heads handed to us by the producers and we never worked network television again. Last I heard, Crabby lived in a tent Phoenix where he spends his days taking pot shots at iguana with a pellet gun. Compared to my lot, that’s a bloody paradise.

Sometimes I like to cover a brick with cake frosting and leave it in a Tupperware container in the communal fridge at work. I always put a big note on it saying it belongs to a fake name, like Brad Millinbobble or something, nobody who really works there. Still, I know human nature being what it is people will try to cut a slice for themselves. Heh heh heh.

I usually spot about three or four bent knives in the trash by the end of the day.

How pathetic is it to have the Harris Teeter bakery do up a birthday cake for yourself and then have it delivered “anonymously” to you at your office while you’re at lunch? I mean, you know full well that your co-workers will see it and throw an impromptu party for you when you get back. And you can, of course, feign ignorance. “How did you ever find out? I didn’t want a fuss!” The best thing is, since it’s all last minute, they won’t even have time to get you a card so they’ll have a quick whip ‘round and put some cash in an envelope. Sweet! But, um, like I said – just how pathetic is that?

Well. How pathetic is it when you do this but it’s not really your birthday – you just need some spare cash? Um … I’m asking hypothetically, of course.

It’s a funny thing about hiring a woman to jump out of a birthday cake. You can’t just can’t walk up to any woman and ask her if she’ll do it. Especially at a PTA meeting. I tell you, the kids are gonna have to be home schooled if the brouhaha doesn’t die down soon.

A while back, I got put in charge of my brother-in-law’s bachelor party. I wanted to have this woman jump out of a cake but things didn’t go too well. The cake itself was fine … about fifty pounds of flour, a gross of eggs, enough icing to choke an anaconda – and I had to use one of those industrial-strength ovens, the kiln type they fire up huge ceramics in. The time and labor were incredible. Then, at the party, I wheel out the cake and – nothing. The lady didn’t jump out. Later, the ME said something about asphyxiation and being baked alive but all I know is everyone was pretty darn upset about the whole mishigas. And I never got asked to plan a bachelor party again.

My old man absolutely hated birthdays and refused to celebrate his under any circumstances. Once I made the mistake of baking him a birthday cake and presenting it to him after dinner. He wasn’t the least bit thankful or happy. In fact, he threw the cake against the wall and locked me in an old freezer we had out in the garage.

To this day, I can’t eat angel food without balling up into the fetal position and crying.

At the office, whenever there’s a birthday card to be signed for a co-worker, I always write the same thing: “I know it’s you who’s been stealing stuff from the supply cabinet, but I won’t tell anyone if you give me the biggest slice of cake.” Surprisingly, I’m right most of the time. And I really get some amazing slices of cake out of it.